1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus, a system comprises a device and a partner device, and more particularly to an electronic apparatus that implements exchanges of information with a partner device with laser light modulated in accordance with transmission subject information.
2. Related Art
Recently, technologies have been proposed that realize wireless communications at very high transmission rates (for example, 1 Gb/s) using laser light in the infrared wavelength range.
All patents, patent publications, foreign patent-related publications, and non-patent literature are hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.
See, for example, the following reference.
Document 1:
KDDI R&D Laboratories, “The Realization of Infrared Wireless Communications at a Transmission Speed of 1 Gbit/s Using a Mobile Telephone”, online: Jan. 21, 2008, <URL:http://www.kddilabs.jp/press/img/83—1.pdf>.
When such technology is employed for exchanges of data between arbitrary electronic apparatuses, even if one or more of the electronic apparatuses is portable and large quantities of data are to be exchanged, it is possible to complete exchanges of large quantities of data in short times without the electronic apparatuses that are performing the exchange of data having to be connected together by a communications cable or the like. Thus, a great reduction in communication durations of wireless communications between previously known devices can be realized. Moreover, this technology is capable of realizing exchanges of large quantities of data by wireless communications between apparatuses that conventionally would not be expected to exchange data by wireless communications, and employment of this technology for numerous applications is expected.
For example, Japanese Patent No. 3,494,683 discloses a radiation detector cassette (a portable radiographic image conversion device, also referred to hereinafter as an electronic cassette) with a structure in which a radiation detector and an image memory are incorporated therein. A radiation image detected by the radiation detector is stored in the image memory as image data, and the image data is read out from the image memory, converted to wireless signals, and outputted to an external signal processing circuit. In the clinical field, there are many apparatuses that it is not desirable to dispose in environments in which electromagnetic waves are being radiated. Therefore, wireless communications that are excellent for the above-described cassette have conventionally been limited to infrared communications based on standards such as IrDA (Infrared Data Association) and the like. However, infrared communications conforming to the IrDA standard have communication rates of the order of 115 kb/s to 6 Mb/s. With this kind of clinical apparatus, even if image data is compressed, reversible compression with a low compression rate is selected in order to avoid adverse effects in interpretation. Therefore, transfers of image data have very long durations. If the aforementioned communication by laser light is employed for wireless communications of the above-described cassette, a great reduction in image data transfer times may be realized.
Relating to the above, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2007-81134 has disclosed a technology that improves the stability of an apparatus that deals with laser light. An optical communications module has a structure that is provided with a laser diode, which is disposed in a lead-frame, and a transparent resin portion, which serves as an adjustment portion for widening a distribution of optical output and adjusting output of the laser diode. In this optical communications module, the transparent resin portion is constituted to include a transparent resin, which seals the laser diode, and a glass filler, which is added to the transparent resin, is uniformly distributed through the whole of the transparent resin, and promotes transmission of light and a diffusion function.
In a mode in which electronic apparatuses carry out wireless communications with one another using laser light, if one or more of the electronic apparatuses is portable, the wireless communications are carried out in a state in which both the electronic apparatuses are disposed with a positional relationship such that wireless communications with laser light are possible. However, because at least one of the electronic apparatuses is portable, if a pushing force, vibration or the like is applied to a casing of the electronic apparatus during the communications with laser light, the relative positions of the electronic apparatuses are altered. With this change in the relative positions, laser light may leak out from a gap between the electronic apparatuses.
The technology described in JP-A No. 2007-81134 is a technology that, by repeatedly refracting light from the laser diode with the glass filler, realizes a widening of the light output distribution of the optical communications module and a reduction in light output amounts of the optical communications module. However, this does not contribute in any way to preventing leakages of laser light when relative positions of electronic apparatuses change during communications by laser light.